Diablo III PC Review - PAGE 1

Diablo was dead, killed off by the Blizzard high and mighty with the closure of the Blizzard North studio in 2005. Blizzard North created the original Diablo as an independent studio, but it was Blizzard's eventual purchase that built the franchise into the modern day colossus it is now. Vivendi, then owner of Blizzard, was quite disappointed with the development of Diablo III, leading to an exodus of Blizzard North's founding employees. Diablo was dead, but much akin to its titular character, Diablo would inevitably rise again.

The Diablo III available now was first displayed in 2008, and to say fans were shocked at what was shown is a severe understatement. Reinvention may be an over-exaggeration, but the new Diablo III was and is a vastly different experience than its predecessors. Attitude, atmosphere, play style and customization, everything from Diablo II was washed clean and rebuilt from the ground up. Is the new take refreshing, reinvigorating, or outright sacrilege? What are Blizzard's intentions, making such a drastic departure from such a popular and well-regarded formula?

It's now 2012, and Diablo III has been out for more than a full week. The hype surrounding the game has reached a point unseen in PC gaming for years, if ever. Records have been broken, as Diablo III sold over 3.5 million copies in 24 hours and more than 6 million to date. Everyone in the gaming community has heard about the issues with Battle.net and the broken midnight launch. Everyone has something to say regarding permanently-online DRM, no offline play and Blizzard's almost daily server downtime. It's a spectacle, high controversy, more of a circus than a game launch, but behind the outrage is one of the most highly anticipated games of the year.

Not just any game either, but a great game – the best action role-playing game since Diablo II. And may the prime evils damn me, but I'll be blunt and say it clearly: the controversy is trivial when compared to the game's astounding gameplay quality and addictive nature. No cliffhanger review introduction here -- Diablo III is awesome.

Loot, Monsters, and Mouse Clicks

Diablo III really should have a sub-title to it: "The Adventure of a Billion Clicks." Clicking is the fundamental element in making Diablo III's gameplay so engaging. Characters will follow your mouse clicks endlessly, from enemy to loot and then in circles as you kite and chase the more challenging monsters in the world of Sanctum. Dragging and clicking armor and weaponry to equip your character are just as exhilarating as combat itself. Even the absence of clicking, hovering over skills for helpful tooltips or on items for stats is in itself rewarding.

If this sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. I feel a little ridiculous thinking about how Diablo III and I interact, but it works. The point isn't that clicking itself is so wondrous, but that Diablo III is able to take such a simple method of interaction and build a wonderful experience out of it. It's literally something everyone can partake in and find rewarding and enjoyable, without difficulty – unless you want difficulty, because Diablo III has that too.

The simplicity and low border for entry will entice new players, but what will enthrall them is twofold: the unfathomably addictive loot and power grind, and the inherent fun and challenge associated with acquiring said loot and power.

I don't see a need to describe why a loot and power grind is in itself so tantalizing, as the popularity of Diablo II and dozens of MMOs in recent years are evidence enough. There's psychology at work here. What Blizzard has done with Diablo 3 is streamlined and expanded the process. There are approximately 18 tiers of armor for eight different armor slots, multiplied by five different playable classes. Each tier of armor is visually unique on its class, and most of the armor slots are dyeable, with a dozen or so dyes to choose from. Add in gold to spend, jewels that can be socketed into armor, and crafting items, and you’re looking at an astounding amount loot, entailing an extraordinary number of customization. That's not even including weapons! Add to that a complex system that randomly assigns attributes like damage values to each item that drops, and there are interminable possibilities for uniqueness, both visually and statistically.

Blizzard's biggest challenge, then, is making this search for loot an endlessly enjoyable experience. In Diablo II, dedicated players were forced into specific classes and skill point distributions to endlessly grind specific bosses. For the majority of players, that exhilarating treasure hunt ended early due to disappointment or sheer boredom, rather than a feeling of reward or completion. So how does Blizzard accomplish this? Three notable ways: four difficulty modes spread across 60 experience levels; five classes with unique play styles and extensive skill customization; and background systems to create random dungeon layouts populated with increasingly challenging enemies and assorted quests and events.

These three aspects of Diablo III's overarching design perform excellently thanks to scalability. Each works to make gameplay unique and exciting every time you log in, from when you're a fresh noob to a rugged and bitter veteran. In Normal mode, a character will look like a hoodlum, have relatively few skills, and battle rare enemies with a single random attribute. You’ll feel tough and unprepared at the same time, like Commander Shepard at the inception of the war against the Reapers.

By Hell mode, a Barbarian near max level will have near every skill unlocked (which are customizable at any point out of combat), look like a Cimmerian king, and fight rare laser-throwing, plague-spreading, vampiric doom beasts by the handful. Seriously, these random rare spawns don't just have more HP and elemental resists – they’ve got legitimate abilities that force you to constantly move and think strategically. Now imagine Inferno difficulty.

The strength of Diablo III is that the more you play, the better it gets. The first Normal mode playthrough may take six to ten hours just so you can soak in everything Diablo III has to offer. Subsequent playthroughs are maybe a few hours, because you know the meat of the game is in the later difficulties. It still feels extremely gratifying tearing through lower level dungeons with your high level character though.

A Tale of Demons, Angels, and War

Woe to those who buy Diablo III for its story. That's not to say there isn't a story in the midst of all of that loot and that other loot. In fact, Diablo III's plot is rather good considering what's readily available in games these days. The story just simply seems to be less of a priority, almost a sacrifice for the greater good. Instead, Blizzard focuses more on ensuring various requisites for gameplay are met, and then the story was built around that. For instance, the diversity in environments is incredible in terms of replayability, but regarding story it's rather distracting. Given that Blizzard wants to continuously introduce you to new, exciting, visually interesting areas means a deliberate narrative would prove contradictory to the whims of exploration and progress as a result. Though the tale itself may be a broken thing, Blizzard fills the absence with a rich and powerful lore.

Possibly to make up for the lack of a full Diablo release in over ten years, Blizzard put out over six books in the time between. That abundance of new backstory, combined with Blizzard's newfound love of expansive lore from World of Warcraft breathes life into the once cold world of Sanctuary. NPCs will constantly refer to various cities and countries yet to be explored in the Diablo universe. Diaries found in the open world describe haunting events involving demons and the growing darkness in the world. Similarly, Diablo III's main characters and companions have multiple conversation options, providing a background for each you might never have cared for. It's all there for you to ignore or enjoy, though I'd recommend reading as much as possible, given how well written this extra content is. In fact, all this additional lore lends itself to a world and story much greater than what Blizzard created in Diablo III, which could lead the series in other directions in the future.

Nevertheless, the story of Deckard Cain, his adopted niece Leah, a falling star and an adventure to rid the world of the prime evils is exactly what Diablo III required; a grandiose epic, full of the risen dead, battalions of demons and a coven most devious – a massive universe that's easy to fall into.

Of course there's the highly controversial issue of Diablo III's artistic direction. Let me just say, straight away, that the entire argument is bogus because Diablo III is visually astounding. Crypts, torture chambers, caves of ice and sand, and hell itself – all brutal, detailed, and at times, graphically disturbing. Is it different than Diablo II? Yes, the smoggy film grain is gone, but only for the better. Everything now is crisp, distinct and clean, so every sword thrust and magical burst is evident the moment it occurs. Trust me, you'll need to be watching for them. I'm constantly impressed at the quality of work involved in animations, even the ambient ones. Stray arrows coursing through crumbling statues or sputtering lightening strikes on brick walls are all very dynamic and of extraordinary quality. Diablo III is not like Diablo II, but better in every regard.

Friends, Enemies and the Disconnects Between

Just in case you haven't heard, Diablo III is perpetually online. It has routine server maintenance that prevents players from accessing the game, and the week since launch has been littered with hundreds of technical issues a single-player game would never encounter. In trade, Diablo III offers a robust online features list. Headlining that list is cooperative play with up to four total players, featuring one of the smoothest drop-in, drop-out systems ever seen in a game. A reliable friends list and chat system are welcome features, complete with profiles showing off each of your characters, including how they appear visually, their gear, and skill build. Add in a huge yet wonky achievement system and an equally wonky auction house, and Blizzard has a potential argument for its online DRM. Then consider the future implementation of PvP battle arenas and a real-money auction house, and I'd almost agree with them. Almost.

Right now, I and likely millions of others would love to have an offline option that works on a LAN. It has nothing to do with not enjoying the online features Blizzard has, well, forced upon us, but with having the option of playing such a great game whenever, wherever we want. It's that simple, and I don't believe any further explanation or justification is needed.

No need for an argument; Blizzard made the anti-consumer choice and they have to do their best with that decision. Dramatic, right? Diablo III is still a ridiculously amazing game, and I'll probably be hunting those achievements for years.

One final note here. While I understand the reasoning for limiting cooperative play to four players – balancing gameplay for multiple difficulties, server load, economy maintenance, graphics intensiveness – the party size is just insufficient. I would love to share some Diablo III experiences with more than three people on my friends list at a time. Of course, the thought of six or eight people in a tight cave fighting against a pack of exploding skeletons is terrifying.

Final Thoughts

Blizzard Entertainment has been making amazing video games since they put out WarCraft: Orcs & Humans. It's hardly surprising their latest release doesn't disappoint, though technically Diablo was developed by a portion of Blizzard that doesn't exist anymore. If anything is surprising, it's just how good Diablo III really is. These Blizzard guys, they know how to make a game, don't they?

I keep returning to just how enjoyable it is to play Diablo III. Yeah, collecting loot, leveling you character and slowly growing into the ultimate demon killing badass is beyond fun. Enjoying the demon slaughter as you do it? Priceless. Blizzard has crafted an impeccably designed and nuanced combat system unlike anything done before. It requires a frantic sort of precision and a willingness to run like a huge coward. A majority of your skill choices will dramatically affect how you have to gear your character and play the game. Balancing the stat and level grind with a combat system that requires you to be strategic and careful is the best improvement to ARPGs in a decade.

The online features, artistic design, and story are all built to complement this extensive loot climb and combat system. Considering each aspect individually, they all have their faults, but when put together, the seams disappear and everything clicks. Diablo III: It Clicks. Now there’s your tagline.

Seriously though, Diablo III is an amazing experience, and by far the best game this year has yet seen. Even now, I can't help but reflect on what sort of rare items I might have acquired if I had been playing rather than writing.

Comments

Good score. I definitely like this game and am glad to see actual reviews. Not kids nerd-raging over the servers being down and giving it a 0 on metacritic, haha.

I feel like I may have given it a tad lower score, though. It felt like a Diablo game, but didn't really "WOW!" me. It was what I expected and I can't fault it for that, but it doesn't get bonus points for being something I didn't expect, lol.

Great review. I haven't gotten the game yet since I'm trying to find the Collector's edition and I'm strapped with cash. Played the demo when they released it for the weekend and liked it. But I loved the Review and the score looks decent to me. 8 or 9 off the little bit that I played.

Gameplay = 8 (supposed to be 10 if not for its faulty server)Graphics = 6Agrgregate score = 7

As I mentioned above Diablo 3's skill mechanics and skill balances fro each hero class are excellent. Also its allocation of certain skills to numbers 1-2-3-4 and certain skills to left click and right click is a very good (more like excellent) game design. But its battlenet servers really suck.

Graphics is poor for a 2012 edition game that requires a radeon HD 4870 video card.

Thanks for the complimentary comments, all. Great games are always fun to review, as they basically write themselves. Well, with some healthy editing from RabidChinaGirl, at least.

If anyone was wondering, I've got a Witch Doctor in Hell, a Demon Hunter in Nightmare, and my Monk and Wizard are making their way through Normal still. Waitin' for a friend to start playing before I try out the Barbarian. They're all so much fun.

Graphics is poor for a 2012 edition game that requires a radeon HD 4870 video card.

I disagree, the graphics are extremely detailed with very little fuzziness. Every shadow, movement and detailing can be seen clearly. It was built for high resolution gameplay, so if you're playing with a smaller monitor screen, you're not going to like it as much.

I think they did a good job optimizing the graphics but the memory leaks are retarded. At the very beginning of the game, on the cliff above Tristram, I was hitting about 10 FPS...so I turned my graphics down, put them back up again in Act II, dove into a fight and didn't chop at all, pretty much a perfect 60 FPS. Sometimes my FPS just takes a nosedive for no reason, and it's really painful and needs some work.

I don't have any complaints about the graphics and the story telling, cause I never really played diablo 1 or 2 for it's story telling and graphics either. I still play diablo 2 from time to time and crappy graphics (compared to current day games ofc) really don't bother me aslong as the game is fun.

There are a couple of remarks that I have though that kind of disappointed me.

--> The skill system is something new but I kind of preferred the skill system of diablo 2 where with each lvl you could make a big difference. Here they just unlock. It's nice that you can have all skills available and all but since you can only equip 6 of them at a time it kind of misses the point imo. I also find it kind of disappointing that you can reach the max lvl so quickly. A lot of the skills I use at lvl 60 are still the exact same ones that I used when I was lvl 25-30, maybe I switched out a rune or a passive but that's about it.

--> The loot system is rediculous. I don't really mind that bosses drop crappy loot (allthough it annoyed the hell out of me that diablo only dropped 2 blues on nightmare mode) anymore and that it's more focussed on elite/rare mobs. I would have liked them to make the story bosses harder but also made them drop nicer loot though. But the one thing that really annoys me is the loot itself. Legendaries aren't even that good. In Diablo 2 there were sets that could be found during lvling and there were a couple of high end sets aswell that were awesome for some classes. There were slight differences between the legendaries back then, like a skill point more or less or a couple of % lesser resistance etc... but legendaries were still most of the times some of the best items around. Now there is a huuuuge difference between the stats a specific legendary gives and even the best ones can be outclassed by a rare on many occasions. Also why did they add normal items? They are worthless (in hell mode they still only sell for about 10gold) and nobody uses them after lvl 10 or so.

--> The crafting system is worthless. The gemming is ok but the Blacksmithing is just pointless. You have to disenchant all those items and then you have to get lucky that you get an item with the right stats for your character, which if you're unlucky can take up to a lot of tries and cost you a lot of money. You're better off roaming the AH and buying an item than crafting and hoping it'll work out. They could fix this by making it possible that items crafted give stats usefull for your class or by reducing the cost of the crafting.

I still enjoy the game but it won't keep my attention as long as diablo 2 did and still does I think.

i totally agree with Plotsome... i mean when i watched some streams from inferno act 3, it doesn't really matter how much hp you have as a Demon Hunter, you still get 1 shot by allmost everything so why to bother putting points in Vitality?it's a waste... and a really huge one, cause DH gets 2 pts Vit every level so on lvl 60 you have 118 points in this stat... :/